Experience is the best teacher? What does that mean? I understand the words, but what do they really mean? When I try to pin it down, I keep coming up with don'ts.
"Don't ride your tricycle on the porch. You'll fall off the edge!"
"Don't climb so high in that tree. You'll break something!"
"Don't get friendly with the hoodlum down the street. You'll get yourself into trouble."
"Don't rush into anything. Finish school first!"
These are the voices of experience. Does any of this sound familiar? It should. We have all heard at least one of the above phrases at some point in our lives. I think that the majority of us, if honest with ourselves, will remember ignoring such warnings and proceeding blithely on our chosen course. After all, we did not ask for these opinions, and we were always aware that we were different somehow, from the foolish souls who seemed to have suffered the consequences of the actions we wished to carry out. We were smarter and more able to handle situations. We would do it better, or be more careful. Sometimes, we would fall of the edge of the porch, or get into a bad situation with the wrong crowd, and we would reconsider our choice of action, and wonder why we hadn't heeded the advice we had been given. The answer we gave ourselves was always "I needed to find out for myself."
When we were very young, we accepted whatever we were told as truth. The words of our elders were irrefutable. The first stage of rebellion generally began when we were four or five years old. The motives of our elders became suddenly suspect. We began to feel challenged to test other people's power over our actions, so we decided to exercise our own power by riding the tricycle where we wanted to, in spite of the warnings. If we didn't fall, we proved to ourselves that we were the masters of our own destinies and could succeed where others had failed. We had proven our own power. The feeling that accompanied this success proved to be addictive, and in most cases, worth the risk of falling occasionally. We continued to take risks to prove our power.
I suspect that growth is impossible without testing the odds. If we based our choices on the experience of other people, we would have no change, no new ideas, no heroes and no growth. We should keep this in mind when we do ignore warnings, and fail. Trying, in spite of the warnings, is the only way we can gain experience, and experience is the way that we can find out what is in our power, and what is not. Experience is best at teaching us to be both more varied and more complete. It can't really be passed from one person to another because each person's experience is a unique expression of his own choices and growth. It is life, teaching itself to us, showing us our limitations and our powers. Those who are rich in experience are rich in life's currency and more able to buy in the marketplace of survival.